PROFS: What Happens in the Event of a Mail Failure?

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Mail Gateway to IBM PROFS and OfficeVision, version 3.0

SUMMARY

In all cases, any mail that fails to be delivered is either returned to the sender or copied to a location where the administrator can retrieve and re-submit it.

MORE INFORMATION

When sending mail from the LAN, a Microsoft Mail user can address mail to any user on any VM node name. Mail can be addressed incorrectly in any of the following ways:

1. If the message is addressed to an invalid node name, it is returned to the originator with an error message. (Note that this is dependent on the Host Access code being at least version 3.1; earlier versions of Host Access send the message to the VM INFORM_ID as an incident report.)

2. If the MS Mail user sends a message addressed to a valid node name, but an invalid user, it is trapped by the remote node's RSCS. The originator will never know that the mail did not reach its intended destination. This behavior, although not ideal, is consistent with the way things work in VM.

3. If a VM user sends mail to an invalid node name, mail is returned to the VM user quickly.

4. If the VM user sends a message to a valid node name, but an invalid user, the situation is the same as in item 2 above.

5. If mail is addressed correctly, but fails in the transfer from LAN to host (or vice versa), the mail is copied into the VMGATE\ERR directory of the mail system database. The LAN administrator is informed of this occurrence and can resubmit the file to the VMGATE directory.